Chicken truck rolls over, blocks all city-bound lanes on SE Freeway near Crafers causing commuter chaos
Peak-hour traffic was in chaos in the Adelaide Hills this morning after a chicken truck rolled over near Crafers, blocking all city-bound traffic on the South Eastern Freeway for hours.
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The South Eastern Freeway has reopened after a chicken truck rolled over early this morning, causing huge delays for commuters and trucks, and bus mayhem.
The truck flipped just before 3.30am, blocking all three lanes on the downtrack just below the Crafers turn-off. The freeway was eventually reopened just before 10am but the residual effects continued well into mid-morning.
Commuter Traffic chaos in the Hills. Trucks are lined up for Kilometres and cars diverted to Greenhill Road as Police and Emergency workers remove an overturned chicken truck on the Sourh Eastern Freeway, heading into the city just below the Crafers ramp @theTiser pic.twitter.com/2KF5esFIjL
— Australian Southern Photography (@ASPphotogallery) March 1, 2020
The ongoing clean-up work caused about 100 trucks to bank up in the left-hand lane of the freeway, lined up for kilometres. Diverted cars and buses were also brought to a standstill.
Reporter Lynton Grace, who was stuck on a bus from Mt Barker, said that before the freeway reopened buses were exiting at Stirling and taking a slow scenic route through the Hills for either Norton Summit Rd or Greenhill Rd.
Other buses also were spotted in the Hills many kilometres from their usual route.
He said there was little explanation for passengers, who experienced delays of about an hour on their usual route into the city.
Police, emergency workers and the RSPCA are clearing the scene where a B-double truck carrying chickens jackknifed around 3.00am this morning. Trucks are lined up for kilometres and cars have been diverted to Greenhill Road and Sturt Road. @theTiser pic.twitter.com/oPriM9Whxh
— Australian Southern Photography (@ASPphotogallery) March 1, 2020
Motorists also were drastically affected.
Greenhill Rd also was at a standstill, with hundreds of cars and buses lined up along its tight bends.
The line of vehicles on Greenhill Rd stretched for kilometres and was travelling at about 30km/h.
SE Freeway still closed for city-bound traffic.
— South Australia Police (@SAPoliceNews) March 1, 2020
After a truck loaded with 3,500 chickens jack-knifed just below Crafers turn-off. https://t.co/VyodCQX1ZU pic.twitter.com/mTH3QZPvtr
Today’s accident is just the latest of many to cause chaos on the freeway in the past few months.
In January, a peak-hour truck fire on the South Eastern Freeway backed traffic up for hours over several kilometres.
That same week, a car has burst into flames on the South Eastern Freeway reducing traffic to one lane.
The uptrack freeway was blocked completely then had lane restrictions in place until about 9pm around the incident site, just before the Heysen Tunnels.
And in October a truck ran out of fuel on the downtrack of the South-Eastern Freeway in the middle of morning peak hour, causing huge delays.
It nearly made it into a hillside emergency lane a little before the Bridgewater exit, leaving just 30cm or so of its trailer sticking out into the left-hand lane.
